


When the Sun Lingers

by stephtron312



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beach Setting, F/M, Oathkeepers Fanzine submission, One Shot, so fluffy call it cotton candy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 09:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21134636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephtron312/pseuds/stephtron312
Summary: Jaime and Brienne have found Sansa Stark and are traveling through Westeros to bring her home. In a rare moment of calm they find themselves at the beach, wrestling with what it is exactly they feel for each other.





	When the Sun Lingers

**Author's Note:**

> This is piece is part of the Oathkeepers Fanzine, curated by the wonderful mothdogs! I'm so excited to see the final product and revel in all the JB goodness everyone created for it. Please check it out: https://www.blurb.com/b/9693559-oathkeepers-zine
> 
> Enjoy!!

Sansa watched out the window from a corner table in the Fool’s Flagon as the rain poured down in sheets. Three days they had been stuck at the inn, thick grey clouds knitted together so tightly that she could hardly tell when day turned to night. On their fourth day, Sansa held her hand to her eyes as she woke, squinting at the brightness that filled the small room she shared with Brienne. Giddy with laughter, Sansa vaulted over the woman’s still sleeping form. She threw the window open, leaning far out of it and smiling at the clear blue sky filled with birdsong.

“Brienne! Come on, come on!”

The girl bounded back over to where soft snores were emitting from her protector. Sansa nudged at Brienne’s shoulder, going so far as to grab her arm and tug with all her might. She danced around the room as Brienne rolled onto her back, shielding her eyes from the daylight. Sansa dressed quickly, bounding barefoot across the hall to stir Jaime and Pod from their quarters.

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes Brienne watched bewildered as the girl danced around the room, looking happier than she’d ever seen her. In the doorway Jaime leaned an elbow up on the frame, while Podrick attempted to hop into his boots.

“Brienne, _please_,” Sansa begged seeing the questioning look on the older woman’s face. “You promised!”

“You did,” Jaime helped, his smile sly and golden as he met her disgruntled gaze.

“That was before it continued to rain for three days,” she grumbled, stretching her long limbs to the sky and softening when she turned to the girl. “My lady, it would be smarter for us to continue north. The weather looks fair and the next storm can come at any moment. We’ve already been delayed for so long.”

“Exactly, that is why we _must_ take advantage. Please, the innkeeper’s wife says it’s a most _beautiful_ beach! It rivals even Dorne, she said. Just for a short while? A nice morning stroll and then we can be on our way?”

Brienne’s reluctant sigh was permission enough to make Sansa clap her hands in delight. Racing out of the room before Brienne could change her mind, Sansa grabbed Pod’s elbow to bring him along in tow, his boot hanging precariously off his foot.

The sand was cold and wet where it was shadowed by the large rocky cliff they had walked between to find the beach, but the rest was warm and gritty beneath their feet. Sansa and Pod had abandoned their boots and companions to the shadows, running along the shore to the water. Brienne watched them, hands on her hips, chest heaving with a sigh.

“If she wanted to see a beach that rivaled Dorne we should have gone to Tarth,” she muttered, her boot kicking at the sand.

“Is that some jealousy I detect?” Jaime said, standing beside her. His feet were bare and he was working at his sword belt as best he could with one hand.

Noting his struggle, Brienne moved towards him, letting out an anguished sigh as she unknotted the belt and handed him Widow’s Wail. “We can’t delay much longer.”

Jaime smirked, walking close to where the tide lapped onto the shore and tossed his sword down. He sat, digging his feet and hand into the earth. “Sit,” he urged, patting the spot next to him. “Let her be a child for the morning. Gods know the last time she had the chance. They’ll be bored soon and we’ll be on our way to that frozen wasteland you are so desperate to get to.”

Reluctantly, Brienne sank to the ground beside him, shifting uncomfortably. She moved Oathkeeper around so it wasn’t digging into her hip, but kept it latched around her waist. Arms wrapping around her knees, Brienne listened to the water touch the shore just barely out of her reach, the sea salt air reminded her so much of home.

“We swore a vow.”

“And a morning at the beach isn’t going to defile that.”

“I’d hardly call this a beach,” Brienne scoffed, her annoyance lying solely with the woman who put the fanciful idea into Sansa’s head. “A sandy alcove, _maybe_, but even that’s generous.”

“Indignation becomes you, my lady,” Jaime smiled at her, teasingly.

Rolling her eyes, Brienne grabbed a fistful of sand and tossed it at him. Jaime caught her fingers, his smile sharp as he turned her arm over. “Careful, wench.” His lips brushed across the skin inside her wrist, gentle and warm.

_“Jaime!”_ Brienne snatched her hand away, her cheeks breaking into a blush as she looked pointedly to where Podrick and Sansa were daring each other to go further into the cool water. Sansa’s riding breeches were already soaked to the knee. “They might see…it…it’s improper.”

Jaime reached towards her, running calloused fingers through her knotted strands. Her hair was longer than he had remembered it being when they parted last, the ends ragged and choppy as if she’d slashed at them herself. She let him touch her, though her eyes kept darting to their two younger companions. 

Brienne was a shy lover, but that hadn’t come as a surprise to Jaime. He had kissed her for the first time the night the rains began, making clear they couldn’t carry on north, and they’d be rooted to one spot for the first time in a long while. Their mouths bumped together clumsily, and she apologized to him as if their lips had met by accident. He had kissed her again to make sure she knew he meant it implicitly.

“The world is falling apart, Brienne. I don’t think anyone cares much about propriety.”

She leaned into his touch, her temple pressing into his palm and letting herself rest for just a moment. When she was young she’d sit on the shores of her home, daydreaming about Renly Baratheon wrapping his arms around her while the summer waters kissed their feet. Jaime wasn’t Renly, he could be rough and bitter where Renly was almost always full of smiles and soft laughs. Yet, she couldn’t imagine Renly’s touch being even half as invigorating.

Jaime winced away from her, his sharp inhale snapping her eyes open. He rubbed at the spot where gold met the skin of his right arm, looking pained. Wordlessly, Brienne moved around to his other side, taking the golden hand in her own and undoing the straps deftly. The skin glared up at her, inflamed and sore. After putting the false hand down, Brienne leaned forward when the next wave came in to meet them, putting a hand full of sand to the water. She rubbed the wet mixture from the abrupt end of his wrist all the way to his elbow, touching him delicately. Purposefully.

“Sand and salt water are healing. No matter the ailment, if you seek out the beach it will mend.” She spoke as softly as she touched, an adage from Tarth that old septas and maesters used to preach.

“Are you secretly an ironborn? Besides, I thought this wasn’t a real beach.” He grinned, trying to appear coy when she looked up at him through lashes so pale he could only be sure they were there by the way they tickled against his brow when they kissed.

She laughed, a great booming sound that was wholly contagious to him. “The ironborn are all drunk on icy squid water, but on Tarth the sand is always warm and feels nice on your skin.” Running her hand down his arm, Brienne cleaned off the remnants of the mixture, studying his skin and scars. She looked off to where Sansa and Pod were romping through the sand, not paying even a scrap of attention to what she and Jaime were doing. Her eyes found Jaime’s again, rounded and unsure as she took his arm in her hands, shyly guiding his stump to cradle against her thrumming heart.

Jaime swallowed, a heat rising that had nothing to do with sand or sun. “The world’s gone astray. Others to the North, dragons in the sky, lions without any claws,” he nodded to his stump at her breast. “And yet I can’t I remember the last time I felt this happy.”

“Oh gods.” Brienne dropped his arm so her hands could cover the blush that erupted across her face. She tried to speak but it was muffled by her large fingers.

“What was that?” Jaime shifted, reaching over to grab one of her hands away. 

Her eyes shifted again to look at Pod and Sansa, her teeth worrying at her lip. “I feel so torn. Not about you!” she reassured when his face started to slack. “But I worry if Sansa were to know how happy I feel... With the horrors she’s faced and the ones that still might come for her? It doesn’t seem fair to feel this way in the midst of all other things.”

“There’s horrors left for us all,” Jaime gazed at her, moving his stump to cover her hand. If he’d had all his fingers, he’d hold her hand tightly, but even without them she gentled at his touch. 

“That’s why I don’t want her to see us,” Brienne admitted. “Not because I’m ashamed, but I wouldn’t want her to be hurt. Gods,” she blurted, covering her face once more as she shifted beside him to face the water. “What have you done to me Jaime? What have I become? Worrying that someone could get jealous or hurt because I’m...in love.”

She let the words hang, body taut as she stared at him, thumb fidgeting around her scarred lips. Leaning on his elbow, he moved towards her, his left hand capturing her cheek as his thumb grazed her jawline. Brienne brought her head to rest against his, and she kissed him with all the gentleness of the calmest sea.

The tide swept up when they weren’t looking, drenching them in its swell. Brienne jumped back with a gasp, hand almost going to the hilt of her sword in her fluster. Jaime, however, was howling with laughter, and scooped his arm through the water to splash Brienne. Her protests only encouraged him until she was nearly soaked from head to toe.

“Are you going to let him get away with that?”

It was Sansa, full of mirth and a bit of mischief as she and Pod approached the pair. The two ladies smiled at each other, decorum not existing in this small hideaway. With a lunge Brienne pushed Jaime backwards just as Sansa did to Pod. The water splashed all around them as they jumped and rolled and laughed. In the sand they laid out, stretching as the sun dried them until Sansa yawned.

She looked up at the sun, her eyes closed with a grin. “The north grows colder, but at least we’ve had this day.”

“I think it’s time to go, my ladies,” Jaime said, standing to gather the boots and socks and discarded weapons. They left the beach in search of their horses, Brienne giving Jaime’s hand a light squeeze before mounting up. The sun drifted behind a dark and grey cloud as they rode onward, but the sand remained warm and waiting for their return.


End file.
